All posts tagged Euromoney FX

Foreign-exchange bankers are a charmingly childish bunch at times and few things amuse them more than a dose of schadenfreude.

Some (outside UBS at least) have only just stopped laughing at the admission by UBS in October last year that it needed to “pull its socks up” to regain lost market share in this vibrant business.

How the mighty have fallen, rivals chuckled, rushing to predict the imminent obscurity of the once number-one bank in this $4 trillion-a-day cash-cow business.

Six months on, and it’s clear that UBS is still finding forex tough. Slower client activity has led to a “modest” decline in revenues from this business, the bank said in its first-quarter results Tuesday. No quick turnaround, then.

This time, though, the cacophony of chuckles is missing.

That’s because, first off, it takes at least a year and generally longer to really kick-start a foreign-exchange business. It takes technology, talent, and dedication. The fruits of this labor are rarely evident overnight. No one wants to write off UBS; after all, it was once the biggest bank in the business.

Secondly, UBS does seem to have a point. Interbank trading volumes have slipped from the start of last year to the start of this one, judging from volumes flowing across the ICAP-owned EBS system, so other banks are likely to be in the same boat.

Thirdly, though, timing is everything. Next week brings the Euromoney FX poll—comfortably the biggest event on the calendar for currencies bankers. It ranks banks by their market share, based on questionnaires filled in by funds, companies and the like.